Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Because Edmonton Cares - On Diaper Duty

A few weeks ago one of our BEC members mentioned to me that the local Food Bank was running short on diapers. She asked if there was anything we could do about it. It just so happened we were already going to volunteer there on March 6th so we decided to hold a diaper drive and take our donations along with us when we went to volunteer.

I put the call out on twitter, our Facebook page and to my son's preschool. It was amazing to see the number of generous souls who helped out! For 2 days I did diaper pick-ups around the city and was always so pleased to stop at a home and see a giant box of diapers, and sometimes formula, on their step.

What amazed me even more was the number of people who stopped by my home to drop them off or who purchased them online and had them shipped to me.

People care. It's really as simple as that. If you put the call out, people will help.

We only had 2 weeks to collect donations and I have never done this before so I set a goal of collecting 500 donated diapers. This is what we got instead:

In just 2 weeks we collected over 2,330 diapers and several cans of formula. It almost didn't all fit in my car!

The Food Bank was so very appreciative of our efforts and once I arrived there to volunteer I understood why; many of the diaper bins were empty. Our contact at the Food Bank also showed me the formula shelves and again I was mortified to see they were almost empty. Did you know that approximately 40% of the clients at the Food Bank are children under the age of 18?

It's heartbreaking to think of a child going unfed, unwashed, or unchanged. We will be doing another diaper/formula/personal hygiene drive later in the year to continue with our efforts to help those struggling in our city.

Thank you again to all those who helped with this drive, or help in their own way on their own time. Every little bit helps and YOU ARE APPRECIATED!